Agricultural Productivity

Our Research and Analysis on Agricultural Productivity integrates statistics, economics, social research and natural science. It covers all aspects of agricultural activity and outputs from descriptive statistics on animal numbers and land type and use to analysis of market intelligence, and the overall worth of Scottish farm produce. It also covers the agricultural workforce and provides the Scottish Government’s annual headline indicator of economic performance of Scottish Agriculture. Our evidence informs research on the wider impacts of agriculture such as farming practices and agriculture’s contribution to Greenhouse Gas emissions. In addition, it facilitates Scotland’s contribution to EC regulatory compliance on agriculture.

Strategic Links

Our Agricultural Productivity work is closely integrated with the Economic Adaptation Theme of the Scottish Government funded portfolio of Strategic Research along with the Themes on Ecosystem Services, Land Use and Health and Welfare. It also has key links to sectoral Themes such as Food and Drink and Agricultural Policy where the issues are of relevance to local communities.

The agricultural productivity work necessarily involves survey activity and data processing. The Statistics Group within the Scottish Government aims to maximise the use of data linking and minimise survey load (as part of the wider objectives of Public Service Reform). Good progress has been made towards achieving efficiency gains in agricultural surveys; more detail is available on the Agriculture statistics - publications webpage.